Metropolitan Diary Archive

For nearly 36 years, Metropolitan Diary has been a place for New Yorkers, past and present, to share odd fleeting moments at Bloomingdale’s, at the deli around the corner, in the elevator or at the movies. Since its debut, overheard conversations have shifted from the backseat of Checker cabs to Crown Vics, from pay-phone booths to cellphones and from the IRT to the JMZ. Still, punch lines delivered by surly waiters, witty train conductors, lively bus drivers, erudite window washers and adult children facing off with an overbearing parent continue to surprise us.

Glenn Collins, the third editor of the column, one of nearly a dozen diary editors, called it an “elegant cocktail of the city.”

While it’s hard to imagine a 20-pound mailbag as “interactive,” back in 1976, when Metropolitan Diary first appeared in The New York Times, a letterbox was the only inbox that existed. Predating the Internet and fax machines, the diary was an early example of a user-generated feature at the newspaper and served as a constant dialogue between readers and editors that captured the zeitgeist.

Taking this concept into the age of the Internet, we aim to make Metropolitan Diary even more interactive on City Room. For our dedicated newspaper readers, not to worry. You’ll still be able to read items in print on Mondays; but online, you can now share and comment on your favorite entries.

Our New Submissions Guidelines

An editor will contact you if your entry has been accepted, and you must be able to verify that you are the author of said story, that it is true (in most cases, that means you were there when it happened), and that your item has not appeared anywhere else.Written submissions should be connected with New York City and should be 300 words or less (typical entries have fewer than 200 words, and many have fewer than 100). While we enjoy short verse, we love mini-plays and prose more, especially if they make us laugh or crack a smile.

See a sign lost in translation? Take a photo. Want to share a sketch of your missed connection? Draw it for us. Photos, illustrations or other visuals (under 10 MB), accompanied by a text blurb, are welcome.

Submissions should be sent to diary@nytimes.com or The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018.

Please include your name, mailing address and daytime telephone number for verification; upon request, names may be withheld in print. Your address and phone number will not be printed. Submissions become the property of The Times and cannot be returned, so, please, no valuables or perishables. By transmitting your submission, you grant The New York Times Company a perpetual, royalty-free license to use the submission in any medium. They may be edited, and may be republished and adapted in all media. You may reprint your story elsewhere after it appears in The Times.

Published contributors were once rewarded with a Champagne delivery, but today’s reward is a bylined entry into New York’s story canon, an ingredient of this “elegant cocktail of the city.” Sometimes it takes readers years to gather the courage to submit, while others offer these New York moments unabashedly. Whatever your speed, whatever your medium, we hope you’ll share your tale with us.